many of us,—I mean, as to the condition and future destiny of the heathen, and the outcast, and the blind, and the ignorant. There, in that stillness of the disembodied life, souls may be taught and trained to know what they never could know in this life on earth, the wonders and the blessings of the life in Christ.
And, besides, do we not at least learn this from Christ’s preaching to these souls, that intercourse and communication is possible in the life after death, and will take place? And this suggests another aspect of the work in that life, besides the work of progressive cleansing and perfecting. The souls of the faithful rest from their labours. Yes! but they have also a work to do which can only be done then, the work of the soul’s purification. The work, however, which they can do for others is better than that which can be done for themselves. What can they do for the souls of others? Can they not do what Christ’s human spirit
did? Here on earth men are charged, not only with the care of their own souls, but with the care of the souls of others also. And why should they not be ambassadors for Christ there, if Christ’s work has to be done there? Here on earth He uses imperfect men to proclaim His Gospel. There, in that after life, if His Gospel is to be proclaimed to those that never heard it in this life, why should He not employ souls also, not yet perfected, upon the same happy task?
And may not this charge, laid on ministering souls in the Intermediate Life, help to solve another mystery—the mystery of many an early and, as we might think, untimely death? How often do we see a life cut short at the very climax of its best powers, in the very midst of its noblest service! All the earlier days had been directed, and had contributed to the perfection of the instrument, and then, just when its work was doing, came the sudden end. Was it not so to our Blessed
Lord Himself? May it not be said with due reverence that, if only His human life on earth had been prolonged, His teaching, and His miracles, and His sinlessness, and His love must have swayed and melted the hearts of men, even of those who so long and so stubbornly withstood Him? We might so think. But, just when His young life was at its prime of human excellence, He died, and His human Spirit passed to preach salvation to souls in the spirit land. So are souls, it may be, taken from us at the summit of their ripeness, but only to be transferred to another scene, and to be employed upon other work. Their labours change, but their works indeed do follow with them to that land where other souls of those who knew not Christ here may learn to know Him there, and knowing Him may choose Him, and choosing Him may be His and He theirs even to the end.
VIII.
“Not handling the word of God deceitfully, but by the manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”
—2 Cor. iv. 2.
The Scriptural doctrine of the Intermediate Life, as I have tried, so far, to set it forth, is a very different thing from what our Twenty-second Article calls “The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory.” The word “purgatory” simply means the sphere or life of cleansing. The Intermediate State, therefore, during which the soul is being purified and fitted for the vision of God in Heaven may be legitimately called “a purgatory.” But “The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory” means much more than this. It is a belief which, originating in what was true and Scriptural, gradually became so overlaid with subsequent additions, that the original
truth was at length buried and lost sight of. What the Twenty-second Article condemns is not any and every conceivable doctrine concerning Purgatory, but the Romish doctrine only. And here it is well to note that all false beliefs which have had for any length of time a wide currency among men have been founded upon and have retained in them some element of truth. This it is which enabled them to survive: this and nothing else gives to error its vitality. These false beliefs are not mere error, but contain truth and error mixed together. The error perverts and makes void the truth; but without the truth the error could not live.
In the case of the doctrine of Purgatory, the true and Scriptural doctrine of the progressive purification of the soul in the Intermediate State is the element of truth on which has been based the Romish Doctrine of Purgatory. Wherein then lies the error of it?